BC-1H1 Broadcast Transmitter Project

At 10:13 pm tonight I finished putting in the three jumpers to convert from remote operation to local. That was the problem. It started up fine and I'm letting it run for awhile without turning on the HV. The blower is a lot quieter than I thought it would be.

You are right, a lot of this stuff seems to show up back east most of the time. I see stuff posted pretty often on various forums and swap sites, on old broadcast rigs for sale. This one I was fortunate it was retired up the road from here in Prescott Valley, AZ. I found it through a local ham who I just happened to talk to at the Marana, AZ swapmeet. I bought 5 810's from him and then found out about the Gates. If you really want one keep looking you'll find one.

BTW, this was the first radio that I had to use my mechanic's tools to work on it.

The transmitter was built in 1974 so something more modern might be more appropriate. Trouble is, a lot of music from that year would make me go nuts it was so sappy.

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Yeah, after 1972/73 things went downhill for a while. Crap like Elton John, Three Dog Night, The Osmond Brothers and The Partridge Family took over. Then the Stones started releasing lower quality shit like it's Only Rock’n Roll. Oh god, then it got even worse. Crap like The Bay City Rollers started. Things did pick up again a bit in the late 1970’s, but it was short-lived. When the 1980’s started it was pretty much a waste of an entire decade as far as music was concerned.

Just pretend the transmitter was made like 2 or 3 years earlier and play something like Sticky Fingers, Who's Next, or Led Zeppelin IV through it .

I'm definitely gonna play some Stevie Ray Vaughan too. Speaking of the Stones, I do like the opening guitar lick by Keith Richards in Start Me Up. That would be good. Can't remember Sticky Fingers or Who's Next....I'll have to check on that.

Speaking of the Stones, I do like the opening guitar lick by Keith Richards in Start Me Up.

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They actually did an unreleased demo of that back in 1975 and it was originally called Never Stop and not Start Me Up. I still have that old demo from back then on reel-to-real and I cannot remember where I got it.

For whatever reason, they remembered it again back in 1980 and finished it. It was finally released in 1981 under the new name. A bit late for your transmitter, but it was probably still on the air back in 1981 though, wasn’t it?

I have a problem on the audio driver board that I'm tracking down. Everything else seems to be working fine.

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"Man, that looks a bit messy and complicated. It will probably work though."

I said the above before. It's probably something simple, but those solid-state boards can be a real pain in the ass especially when and if they haven’t made some of the transistors for 20 years and you have to find substitutes..

I think it will be a simple fix. I have it out on the bench but have not had time to work on it in last few days. Yeah, tube circuits would be more understandable to me but this is an educational project so I'm ok with it. I figure once I get the Gates, Viking II, and Globe King on the air I might be ready to build my own rig.

Brian, still working on the move to the country. Since I'm retired and have the time, I'm doing most of it myself. I still have a little left in the old house to move and then the 3-car garage full of my tools and ham radio stuff will have to be moved. We are living at the country house now and I have the radio station on the air on 80 and 40 meters using a Flex 3000 into a Collins 30L-1 linear for now. I run about 100w carrier with that set up.

Since there is limited space for my stuff until I get my shop/ham shack built, I rented a 40' shipping container and had them place it on the property. That's where most of the stuff from the old garages will go.

Really looking forward to getting all of this done so I can get back to radio projects!

Yeah, I know how those moves go. Even after you get everything at your new location a lot of it will sit there for years before you even get to it again. You never know how much junk you have accumulated until you go to move it.

Here in CA (Bay Area) we have those things called PODS. When a house sells here you will often see one sitting in the driveway.

Hey by the way, when did you take the pic below with the old farts? Especially the ugly one with the long grey hair and the sunglasses standing next to you

Funny, on the way home tonight after picking my daughter up at school a couple of blocks away there was a PODS in someones driveway again just around the corner. Those things are getting popular here.

I knew an AM'er in Tucson back in the 1980's until I moved in 2000. I doubt he's even around anymore. It's been so long I cannot remember his call, but I have it written down on something somewhere. There were a ton of people who got into the vintage AM radio collector craze back then and most are gone now because they got bored with it, I think. The rest are just dead, SK..